Trust and Your Less Serious Side

by Christina Hubbard

This month I’m doing lots of firsts: giving a poetry workshop at a conference, for one. Training to be a Holy Yoga instructor, for another. For me, both are extremely creative, fulfilling endeavors. How poetry and yoga work together? I have yet to figure that one out. Enter: trust.

Commence: eating cereal bowls of faith (wheaties, supergrains, you name it!) Proceed: taking long deep belly breaths while making fingers fly across the screen. Onward, ho, to downward dog between training webinars and practicing poetic phrasing aloud to Powerpoint.

I sat down on the couch next to my husband last night and confessed my stress. He offered to take the kids one night while I went to a coffee shop. This helped immensely and immediately. What aided further was a sentence which popped in my head, “Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

So this morning I put my yoga mat under my oak tree and did legs up a wall against the trunk. I snapped a photo for an Instagram post. An acorn landed near my head with a thump. I thought of the pesky squirrels who were likely to start tossing acorns at my head as they do when my son climbs near their nest. Chuckling, I rolled up my mat. How odd they must think me, doing yoga and typing away on my laptop daily on the deck. I scurry about like the world rests on my shoulders. They hide away acorns for winter between wrestling matches filled with chattering and flying tails. It’s not the first time I’ve asked myself this: can I trust that God wants me to enjoy what I’m doing?

Love from a Fellow Creative

I remember asking myself this question: “Why would anyone want to hear what I have to say?” And then I got a message from a random stranger telling me that what I had written gave her encouragement during a very difficult time of her life. It was in that moment that I realized I don’t have to be perfect, I don’t have to meet the masses – I simply have to be willing to relay what the Lord has placed on my heart and He will do the rest, He will bring whomever needs to hear it. Write for the one and rest knowing that is enough.

You never saw him, yet you love. You still don’t see him, yet you trust him—with laughter and singing. Because you kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking forward to: total salvation.1 Peter 1:8 (MSG)

Who needs to experience God’s pleasure because you are trusting Him in your art?